Ed. Reform Rockstar: Rudy Crew Picks Up In Miami Where He Left Off In NY

A great column by Freedman in NYT about what Rudy Crew is up to.

BY agreeing to the new system - an extra hour of class or professional development every working day in exchange for 20 percent more pay, meaning about $10,000 annually on the average - Mr. Richard (president of the Miami-area union) put a disgraced union firmly on the side of reform...

Under a new program devised with the teachers' union, Dr. Crew was offering 20 percent more pay for 20 percent more hours for all teachers willing to work in the 39 most-troubled schools in the county, the ones he had designated as the "School Improvement Zone." He liked to describe the plan as "an internal Peace Corps."

BACKGROUND:

A great interview with Crew from a PBS Frontline program on school choice. Here's a taste:

I agree with charter schools. I agree with them to the extent that schools are given the opportunity to be and remain public schools. In New York City, I tried to get this point across when the governor was talking about having them work under some other aegis. I don't happen to agree with that aspect of it, but I do believe that charter schools offer an opportunity to build competitive new models. It gives us an opportunity to figure out new and different ways to allocate resources, and ways by which to strengthen and support the creation of new schools within the public school sector.